Chloe Moffat

Chloe Moffat was a 26 year old civil servant who worked as a personal assistant to a director at HM Treasury in London. She is remembered publicly not for a long career in the spotlight but for the circumstances of her death, which became the subject of a coroner's inquest that found the department she worked for had contributed to it. Her case has been widely reported because of what it revealed about how disciplinary processes are run inside the civil service, and because her parents, Anne and David Moffat, have spoken publicly about her and campaigned for change.

Moffat had worked at HM Treasury since October 2022. By all accounts from the inquest, she enjoyed her job and had a clean disciplinary record before 2025. In May 2025 a colleague made an anonymous complaint accusing her of sharing confidential information. She was called into what the department described as an informal fact finding meeting, during which she was not told that the likely outcome, if the allegation were proven, would have been a written warning rather than dismissal. According to evidence given to the inquest, she was left shocked, upset and fearful that she could lose her job.

Chloe Moffat died on 20 May 2025, the day after that meeting. An inquest at Surrey Coroner's Court in Woking later examined the circumstances in detail. Assistant coroner Anna Crawford concluded that HM Treasury had materially contributed to her death by failing to follow its own written disciplinary policy and by denying her safeguards that should have protected her, including adequate notice of the meeting and access to support. The coroner also said the informal approach taken in Moffat's case, which the Treasury had described as standard practice, posed a continuing risk and issued a prevention of future deaths report to the department and to the cabinet secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo.

The case mattered beyond Moffat's own family because it exposed a gap between the civil service's written disciplinary rules and how managers actually carried them out in practice. Campaigners and commentators on workplace welfare pointed to the case as evidence that informal, poorly documented processes can cause serious harm, particularly when staff are left uncertain about the consequences they face. Her parents told reporters they wanted lessons to be learned so that no other family would suffer in the same way, and continued to press the department to be held to account even after the inquest concluded.

On 2 November 2026, HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office formally accepted the findings of the coroner's prevention of future deaths report, stating they took the concerns extremely seriously and were committed to making lasting changes as a result of Chloe Moffat's death. The acceptance came after more than a year of scrutiny of the department's handling of her case, and it was reported as a significant moment by her family, by civil service unions and by outlets covering workplace safety in government. Tributes since her death have consistently described her as a bright, caring and talented young woman who was well liked by colleagues and had, until the final days of her life, a positive relationship with her work.